On the image is the overall view of a female nematode. Two such creatures were successfully defrosted from 32,000 and 41,700-year-old permafrost, and have already exhibited signs of life.
Credit: Shatilovich, Tchesunov, et. al/Doklady Biological Sciences

In a major scientific breakthrough, worms that have been trapped in permafrost for tens of thousands of years have come back to life, and are said to be moving and eating.

They are now considered the world’s oldest living animals. (emphasis added)

Signs Of Life

Prehistoric nematodes are said to be showing signs of life and eating after researchers from various institutions collaborated and defrosted the permafrost they were trapped in for tens of thousands of years. Researchers evidently analyzed over 300 samples of permafrost from different origins and ages, and found two that were the most viable samples that contained nematodes, or more commonly known as roundworms.

Both samples came from the cold Yakutia region in Russia, but one came from a permafrost wall in a squirrel burrow, while the other was found in permafrost near the Alazeya river way back in […]

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Peer-reviewed research shows that conservatives are more sensitive to threat. While this threat-bias can distort reality, fuel irrational fears, and make one more vulnerable to fear-mongering politicians, it could also promote hypervigilance, perhaps making one better prepared to handle an immediate threat.

1. Conservatives tend to focus on the negative

In a 2012 study, liberal and conservative participants were shown collages of both negative and positive images on a computer screen while their eye movements were recorded. While liberals were quicker to look at pleasant images, like a happy child or a cute bunny rabbit, conservatives tended to behave oppositely. They’d first inspect threatening and disturbing pictures—things like car wrecks, spiders on faces, and open wounds crawling with maggots—and would also tend to dwell on them for longer. This is what psychologists call a “negativity bias”. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. When attention is biased toward the negative, the result is an overly threat-conscious appraisal of one’s surroundings. Essentially, to many conservatives the […]

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Credit: Christopher Anderson / Magnum

In more than twenty years of running diversity-training and cultural-competency workshops for American companies, the academic and educator Robin DiAngelo has noticed that white people are sensationally, histrionically bad at discussing racism. Like waves on sand, their reactions form predictable patterns: they will insist that they “were taught to treat everyone the same,” that they are “color-blind,” that they “don’t care if you are pink, purple, or polka-dotted.” They will point to friends and family members of color, a history of civil-rights activism, or a more “salient” issue, such as class or gender. They will shout and bluster. They will cry. In 2011, DiAngelo coined the term “white fragility” to describe the disbelieving defensiveness that white people exhibit when their ideas about race and racism are challenged—and particularly when they feel implicated in white supremacy. Why, she wondered, did her feedback prompt such resistance, as if the mention of racism were more offensive than the fact or practice of it?

In a new book, “

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Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Credit: Tom Williams/ Getty

The Trump administration’s plan to weaken federal rules on vehicle emissions could lead to the Supreme Court re-examining a major climate case that defined carbon dioxide as an air pollutant.

EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are expected to launch a rewrite of the tailpipe rules as soon as this week. It’s expected to freeze fuel economy targets at 2020 levels through 2026, allowing automakers to build cars that travel about 30 miles per gallon of gas rather than 36 miles.

The administration is also expected to target a legal waiver that lets California set tougher standards to address historical smog problems. EPA might argue that the state’s authority over air pollution only extends to local pollutants, not global greenhouse gas emissions. Or the agency could seek to revoke the waiver entirely. That could kill the state’s effort to address climate change through a program requiring automakers to sell “zero emission” vehicles.

It’s likely to ignite a legal battle between EPA and California, plus […]

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Credit: Alan Diaz/AP

Shortly before  the 2016 presidential election, Russian military hackers tried to trick employees of VR Systems, a Florida-based e-voting vendor, into downloading computer-hijacking malware, according to a top-secret NSA report published by The Intercept last year. As recently as last month, the company denied any breach had occurred. But, in fact, the hacking attempt worked, judging from an indictment of 12 Russian military officers prepared by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and handed down by a grand jury today.